


Spell to return lost things

by veyl



Series: 2018 Peapod McHanzo Week [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Implied Relationships, M/M, Memories, Mermaid!Hanzo, Peapod McHanzo Week, Spells & Enchantments, Visions, anyway, forgotten things and stolen things, if you read this and go ??? i totally get it, ummmm, witch!mccree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 20:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13256169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veyl/pseuds/veyl
Summary: Jesse is at a loss; a lost heart and he cannot remember giving it away.





	Spell to return lost things

Jesse has forgotten something, lost something. He cannot think where he might have misplaced it or why. There is a weight missing from his chest, instead there is a fluttering decoy, a bird. Something lingers in the corner shadows, but is gone when Jesse looks. Perhaps he is mistaken.

There is unrest in this temporary home, white fairy lights illuminating the wards on the walls. He brushes the edges of them while looking for his lost thing; it is not in the jars along the shelves, or in the boxes under the bed. It is not in the kitchen basket or the bathtub or wrapped inside his favourite serape. Jesse is at a loss; a lost heart and he cannot remember giving it away.

In the kitchen he grabs two sheets of bright red paper and a marker from a table buried in craft materials, digs around a drawer in search of a candle, then goes back to the shelves to take two jars filled with herbs he will need for this. In the middle of his living room he sits on the floor cross-legged, brow furrowed in concentration. He lights the candle; in its light carefully, patiently, he draws circles and lines until they have formed a pair of eyes, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he works on getting as much detail as he can right. He folds the other sheet into an envelope, then folds the eyes and places them inside it, adds in a dusting of garlic and a pinch of rosemary. Lastly he seals the envelope with candlewax and then holds it over his chest.

Last night is like strange dream, a dreamlike memory; it is hard to remember the details of where he was and what he was doing. He recites a spell to help him slip into a meditative trance: _These eyes have closed, their search must wait / But with these eyes much more ornate / I will scour crevice and crack / Until I have my heart back_

The spell gifts a vision – a memory that he had thought a dream. Now, so exquisitely clear.

 

Swaying gently over water is the lady moon, plump and playing with the ripples and the biting winter wind. She moves across the sky with certain charm, keeping stalking grey clouds at bay. She reaches far across snow-covered grounds and delights in shiny sugary weight atop the treebranches. Somewhere beneath the silver surface she touches the water and makes it strong.

Clear-eyed and full of her energy Jesse parts through treebranches to make way to the lake ahead, soft lines blurring in the sharp light. Cold air in his lungs, bitter taste on his tongue, dangerously enchanting; moonlight stares back at him and perhaps laughs or weeps, or does nothing at all. He cannot say, try as he might. He can understand her no more than he can understand the treewhispers, or firesmoke, or rainsong. They are a touch, pale pressure against his skin and shapes before his eyes, and melodies inside his mind; he needs not understand for them to make sense. The air does not care if it is a wind or a breeze, it just is; and water does not think if it is salty or still, the life that grows within it is neither good nor ill.

The lady moon casts her light over him, gliding her fingers over sheltering shadows and pushing inside the bordering cracks. There is no rest for the sensitive souls so long as she rules the sky; there are ghosts within the moonlight-shaped trees that send the strongest of hearts shivering. But it is latewinter, last chance for this season’s spell with the first breath of spring just a moment away. Jesse has come to collect snow and lakewater under her watchful gaze.

She laughs, or weeps; her smile beautiful and cruel, her tears kind as she watches over him. Tonight he does not search the sky for stars, he already knows he will find none. Tonight he takes her gift and follows the visions reflected in the snow around him. Shadows, and voices.

There – an echo. A soft tune that lingers even as Jesse has left the flow of whispers. So faint that he barely hears it, and one easily overlooked had he not been listening. There is a strange taste to the air, familiar and not. It is thick ahead, burning the back of his throat and clogging his nose, a mixture of both; it is a human scent masking the lines of something far more dangerous, the rawest of senses scattered beneath the mock-whisper of wind, the teasing sweetness of spring. Moon-blessed, a creature that might walk the earth, but hides somewhere secret and deep when they so wish.

There is that noise that moves him, a song over water. Jesse has heard of merfolk and sirensong; he knows not which waits ahead, but steps out softly, following the spell. The trees seem to sigh as he abandons their cover, shuddering in the cold, they laugh: _there goes another fool._

Sharp eyes, dark eyes. They study him and dare. Jesse cannot move, cannot look away.

“Why are you here?”

The creature speaks. His voice carries in the rippling water, reaching out to Jesse. His heart drums against the cage of his chest as if fighting wildly to escape. Then, oh. _Oh._ He had not misplaced it after all – it was stolen.

His eyes open.

 

_Scaly bastard, slippery sonufa-_

Bird in his chest, wolf in his head. He must go back to the lake and find the thief. _These eyes have opened, their search will start / Those other eyes have done their part / I will scour crevice and crack / And I will have my heart back_

But he must wait.

Before nightfall he fashions a charm for protection; a ward against harmful energies – perhaps of the like that made him forget and forget his heart – a couple of short iron nails atop rue leaf and lemon peel, with salt in the remaining space, sealed inside a little glass bottle that he pockets on his way out. It is a poor shield in face of uncertainty, but it is a shield nonetheless.

He goes back to the lake; stands at the edge of it with marble breath and the laughing moon. The lake-creature, not a vision or a dream, is there, waiting. This time Jesse speaks first.

“Think you got something of mine, sugar.”

“Oh?” He smiles slowly, dangerously. He sits on a rock some distance away, scales shining where they catch the moonlight, fin swaying lazily to create ripples in the water. He speaks lightly, hides sharp teeth behind a honeytongue. “Did you come to take it back?”

“Something like that.”

He hums, a little amused noise.

“What if I traded you something for it instead?”

Jesse raises his brows at him. He’s pretty sure he needs his heart; what could the merman – the siren? he’s still not sure – possibly offer to replace it? He says this much.

The creature keeps a secret smile playing on his lips; he slips off the rock and dives, emerging moments later nearer shore, just a touch away from Jesse. He folds an arm under himself, raises up one sleek finger to call Jesse closer. Reasonably wary and throwing all reason to the fullmoon, Jesse does so and crouches next to him.

“My name,” the lake-creature whispers into the night.

Now then. Names are powerful; spells in themselves, war cries and lullabies. They capture the tongue so easily, sweet and sour, sticky and smooth. It is a tempting offer.

And yet.

“You laugh at me,” Jesse says. “I know your name.”

“Do you, witch-child?”

Sure as the moon keeping watch, sure as the cherry blossoms that will cover the bare branches hanging over water in spring. It is in his mouth, on the tip of his tongue; quenching freshwater and tumultuous pressure.

“Hanzo,” Jesse says, sighs, softens. “Give it back. Please.”

There is something around his neck that he notices now, as Hanzo hooks two fingers around the string and pulls it off his head; a small stone wrapped in lakeweed, fashioned into a necklace. It hangs swaying as Hanzo holds it out to him. There is a water-rune on it. Jesse thinks he recognizes it; something like rebirth and protection. Trust. Safety.

There is something important about it, though Jesse is not yet sure what.

“Now what am I going to do with that?” he asks, still unaware that his voice has dropped to a whisper. Hanzo smiles wider, all sharp teeth. “Put it on and I will show you.”

Jesse takes it, pulls the cord over his head. No sooner than the stone falls over his chest, light weight and damp, has Hanzo wrapped both his arms around him, pulling him under. The lakewater splashes when they are gone, then ripples, then stills.

It is cold.

It’s cold and Hanzo has a tight hold on him, pulling ever deeper as he swims into the heart of his lake. Jesse would panic but he cannot find the time for it; his eyes are wide against the burn that never comes, the clear sight that should be blurry at best. “Breathe,” Hanzo tells him; he is a thousand whispers, all around him, in the water. Against all common sense Jesse listens and breathes in a lungfull through his nose; and doesn’t drown.

He breathes in again, it feels strange like the air is thick and slow. It makes no sense and it does, Hanzo loosens his grip and takes his hand instead. They are near bottom now, Hanzo swims slower, gently guiding Jesse. He steps on sand and stone and seaweed, walking over them as plainly as he might forests, forts and fields.

“It’s a spell,” Jesse says and forgets his surprise at the extent of it. He can see, breathe and talk underwater just as easily as any creature that belongs to it. Hanzo gives a tiny nod. “It is that and more. It is my heart.”

Jesse stops. His fingers loosen their grip; he cradles Hanzo’s face with his hands and looks wondering into those dark eyes.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“To show you my home. Before you take me away from it.”

He kisses him.

It is cold. Jesse shouldn’t feel this warm or this serene. But the water feels like silk around his body, soft and calming like a cradle, like a grave.

 

Jesse has remembered something, gained something. He cannot think where he might have found it or why. There is a weight inside his chest, hungry and wet. Something lingers in the corner of his vision, bright light dancing when Jesse looks. Perhaps he is mistaken.

The witch-child, summer-born and sun-shaped, erases the wards from the walls of his temporary home. He takes down the fairy lights, packs away the jars into the boxes under his bed. He takes the kitchen basket and puts on his favourite serape.

Down by the lakewater something remains; quick-frozen in the snow, a glittering shield discarded in the weeping moonlight. She checks her reflection in the glass shards of a broken bottle, cradles the lemon-scent and rue-perfume released into the wind.

And Hanzo is there, waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the two wonderful peas, AughtPunk and wyntera for hosting Peapod McHanzo Week!
> 
> this thing pulled itself from the cold cold depths of a lake with black fingers and a head full of lakeweed
> 
> [spell to return lost things](http://peppermintspell.tumblr.com/post/169107611386/spell-to-return-lost-things) and [bottle of warding and protection](http://peppermintspell.tumblr.com/post/169107765731/bottle-to-ward-off-harmful-energy-and-protect) slightly modified for the sake of narrative


End file.
